Venezuelan toilet paper shortage an unwelcome symptom of socialism

Chicago Tribune ^ | February 26, 2016 | By John Kass

[Oldeconomybuyer]

The problem with socialism, Margaret Thatcher is credited with saying, is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

But the late Mrs. Thatcher - heroic conservative prime minister of Great Britain - was too well-mannered to tell people what actually comes next.

So I'll have to do it.

After socialists run out of other people's money, the people eventually run out of something almost as precious as money:

Toilet paper.

It's happening right now in Venezuela, once a socialist, oil-rich paradise and land of great shortstops. But Venezuela is fast becoming a thoroughly failed state.

Let's just hope it doesn't happen here. A nation without toilet paper is a nation ungovernable.

So I bet if you asked Bernie about a toilet paper shortage, this is what he'd say:

"Young Americans have a right to toilet papah!! You should all have toilet papah! And Wall Street, which is full of papah, should pay for all the toilet papah we need! No young American should feel the bern unless they WANT to feel the bern!"

Any toilet paper in Venezuela is either given as precious gifts, or smuggled out to nations that will pay a decent price for the privilege of soft behinds.

I'm no economist, and I'm sure there are many brilliant PhDs who would say that socialism really does work.

All Venezuela has to do is go deeper in debt, and print more money, the way we do it here in the U.S.A.

It's only paper.

[SkyDancer]

Or bark like a dog.

[Army Air Corps]

ARF!

[vetvetdoug]

Newspaper and leaves were good for TP but if a person has running water a bidet is a great investment.

[vetvetdoug]

We used the Sears’ Catalog to burn the underside of the outhouse seat. Neophytes think the catalog is for wiping but we used softer paper. Black widow spiders built up around the seat in warm weather and we set the catalog sheets on fire to burn around the seat before seating. Many a man died when a black widow bit him on the balls.

[Twinkie]

BUCKET OF WATER?!! That’s SISSY!!

[Twinkie]

Ha! I thought I was flying when we got an outhouse AND a
Sears & Roebuck catalog; THEN when I got a spray bottle, I
was on Cloud 9! (That’s the Hillbilly Bidet!)

[Twinkie]

Now they’ve got too many slick, colorful pages - even the
white bras have color added to make them sell! :O)
I also used to like the rough, unbleached toilet paper we
got at school. These days, that costs extra.

[freedomlover]

[razorback-bert]

Unfortunately, there are no Sears catalogs to use anymore.

[Thank You Rush]

Yep! Very familiar and useful; besides giving us some pictures to look at while we were in the outhouse - UNLESS - it was winter time and then we HURRIED through!

[TruthWillWin]

What did people do centuries ago before toilet paper existed? On second thought don’t answer that, don’t want to know.

[Thank You Rush]

“”Black widow spiders built up around the seat in warm weather””

Sure glad I wasn’t aware of that many years ago. Being a female I didn’t have the problem you mentioned in the last sentence but I would have had to find someplace else to do my business if I’d known ANY kind of spiders were out there.
I would have gone to the barn or the henhouse - anywhere but there!